{"id":556745,"date":"2026-01-24T01:43:11","date_gmt":"2026-01-24T01:43:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/556745\/"},"modified":"2026-01-24T01:43:11","modified_gmt":"2026-01-24T01:43:11","slug":"southeast-notes-magic-ware-heat-wizards-hornets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/556745\/","title":{"rendered":"Southeast Notes: Magic, Ware, Heat, Wizards, Hornets"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Magic were blown out at home by the Hornets on Thursday, falling 124-97 to a team that trailed them by eight games in the standings entering the contest. Although Orlando was missing starters Franz Wagner<\/a> (ankle) and Jalen Suggs<\/a> (knee), several Magic players expressed frustration after the loss about the club\u2019s inconsistent play, writes Jason Beede of The Orlando Sentinel<\/a> (subscription required).<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s no true identity to our team right now,\u201d Magic swingman Desmond Bane<\/a> said. \u201cAnd it\u2019s hard to win on a consistent basis when you don\u2019t have (a) calling card.\u201d<\/p>\n

Since having a three-game winning streak snapped on December 3, the Magic hold a 10-12 record and haven\u2019t won more than two games in a row.<\/p>\n

Orlando has been one of the NBA\u2019s best defensive teams in recent years, finishing last season with the league\u2019s second-best defensive rating, behind only the champion Thunder. But the Magic rank 13th in that category this season and haven\u2019t been any better on the other end of the court \u2014 they\u2019re 19th in offensive rating.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m never a fan of saying that there\u2019s two sides of the ball, and we\u2019ve got to figure this out on this side,\u201d center Moritz Wagner<\/a> said. \u201cThey\u2019re connected and, generally speaking, when you look at the swag, the energy and the spirit, it just feels not up to par to our standard and we\u2019ve got to figure that out.\u201d<\/p>\n

Here are a few more notes from around the Southeast:<\/p>\n

Heat center Kel\u2019el Ware<\/a> missed a second straight game on Thursday due to a right hamstring strain and will be out on Saturday in Utah and Sunday in Phoenix too, per Ira Winderman of The South Florida Sun Sentinel<\/a> (subscription required). Ware was sent home from the team\u2019s road trip in order to receive additional treatment on his ailing hamstring. \u201cI don\u2019t think it\u2019ll be a long-term thing, but I don\u2019t have a specific timeline on it,\u201d head coach Erik Spoelstra said. \u201cWe\u2019ll just wait until we get back to Miami. He had a good day today. They\u2019ll work the next few days, and we expect there to be some progress.\u201d
\nFormer Heat employee Marcos Tomas Perez, who pleaded guilty<\/a> last August to transporting and transferring stolen goods in interstate commerce, has been sentenced to three years in prison and ordered to pay $1.9MM in restitution, Angie DiMichele writes for the Sun Sentinel<\/a> (subscription required). As DiMichele details, Perez worked in the Heat\u2019s security department from 2016-21 and was arrested after being accused of stealing millions of dollars in game-worn jerseys and other team memorabilia.
\nWith an eye toward the winter storm headed for the Charlotte area, the NBA has moved up the tip-off time for Saturday\u2019s Wizards\/Hornets game from 6:00 pm to 12:00 pm local (Eastern) time (Twitter link<\/a>). Charlotte isn\u2019t the only NBA city likely to be hit by that storm this weekend, but that matchup between Southeast rivals is the only game whose start time has been impacted so far.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Magic were blown out at home by the Hornets on Thursday, falling 124-97 to a team that…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":556746,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3724],"tags":[7,981],"class_list":{"0":"post-556745","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-basketball","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-kelel-ware"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/115947543450306552","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/556745","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=556745"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/556745\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/556746"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=556745"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=556745"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=556745"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}